The Real Issue: You Must Decide Now

I talk a lot about random topics that concern me, ranging from the nature of death to cosmic eternity. In all of this, you're probably asking yourself what the point of it all is, and you'd be right in asking. Philosophy for the pure sake of philosophy is not very useful or interesting (except to those who just love philosophy). Though many of my writings have been of that nature (discussing philosophical concepts for the sake of discussing philosophical concepts), there is an underlying goal I have in mind, and it begins in small steps.

I like to imagine that I look at the big picture of things. I've never been one to care overly much about most short-term things, usually looking at a general picture of the world when I deal with things. As I learn more and more each day and try to understand the world around me, the very obvious but disconcerting truth becomes evident: our world stands on the brink, and without effort, we will all be torn asunder.

Humanity has always been humanity, but leaps and bounds in human technology, the rise of globalization, and an unprecedented amount of interaction between different cultures that don't treat each other like human beings has put us at a pivotal point in history. Trust me when I say that I am not the only one to hold this view.

It is easy to blame millenia of growing tensions around the world on religion. At surface, this seems to be a fair assessment. After all, many of the problems today can be traced back to actions done by the massive Christian and Muslim powers throughout the last 2000 years. In some places, their damage has been almost irreparable. Empires were formed and people were subjugated, killed, and compelled against their will all in the name of religion. For the most part, it was Muslims and Christians who instigated all of this, and much of the blame rests with them.

Just blaming religion though is to easy and actually unfair. Moreover, blaming religion allows many people of low caliber to take the easy way out and abandon or chastise religion (and then praise their lack of religion as a sign that they're enlightened or some nonsense like that). No, religion itself is not to blame, for religion is merely the grand manifestation of humanity at a large and usually social level. A person cannot merely run from religion just because of its failings and be considered clean. Humans are to blame, not religion. After all, there are no ugly religions, just ugly people who practice them.

As cliched as it may sound, there is no truer statement: given the political, religious and social climate around the world, war is inevitable with current conditions. As people, we have all failed to consider the humanity of others. We create barriers around our beliefs and egos, taunting, ridiculing and occasionally even attacking those outside of our self-created walls. This madness, though possibly the result of some general pattern in the evolution of humans to consciousness played out, cannot be allowed to continue. I don't know about you, but I don't want the world to take a drastic turn at one of the potential high points in its duration.

In the next 500 years, humans will hopefully make the true leap to space. While the lunar landing was impressive, it did not establish much of true lasting significance. When humans begin living off of earth, when the first human is born in space or on extraterrestrial soil, humanity will have made one of its greatest leaps. With the consciousness and intelligence we possess, we have starbound potential. If the vast pool of human potential is even remotely tapped, then we can one day leap out into the stars, spreading across the galaxy, and maybe one day, we'll even cross the great seas betweens galaxies, the great oceans between galactic clusters. While much of this is in the future (however possibly distant), what happens now will of course have an important effect on our future (and our next great evolution as a species).

Consider this: much of human energy today is spent on bickering and on destruction. Western society (more specifically at the moment, American society) is trying to perfect the art of war. Billions, possibly even trillions of dollars a year are spent on developing technologies for war. Although war technologies usually mark great leaps in general human technology, we are at a point where we can better use our resources for other things. Think even more about how much time and effort are wasted on what really amount to insignificant cultural differences between people who are more similar than they think. The Christians and the Muslims continue to kill each other, even though their values and beliefs are actually quite similar (though neither side would admit that because they would consider that an insult, another sign that we don't value people who are different from us).

Underlying this unwillingness to empathize with other people and try to understand things from their perspective is the failure of virtually every human to not take responsibility for their mistakes. This is a human universal that none of us transcend. Look all around you. Notice how people will quickly blame, despise, and punish others for not taking responsibility for their actions, but we will be the first to hide from our own failings and deny our involvement in their creation. Everytime we do this, humanity takes a step backwards, going ever closer to the precipice of obscurity. Too many more steps and we'll all fall in.

The blame game is an effort in extreme futility, and humanity has wasted countless millenia and energy in trying to cover their own shame while trying to expose other peoples'. This has in time become more than just an impediment to progress; it is now the infection that threatens to set the body against itself and cause humanity to destroy itself. We value our perspectives over other peoples' while completely ignoring them.

Do you think I'm wrong? I'm not one to usually be this aggressive, but I'm sorry. In this case, I am right, 100%. Consider that some of the people we hate the most in life are the ones who most make us recognize the flaws we try to hide. Consider that people who truly love us tell us the good and the bad we do, but half the time we fail to realize this and instead hate them or direct anger at them daring to imply that we were anything less than perfect. Consider that every time we make mistakes, we usually blame everyone except the agent of our actions: ourselves. Consider that we never accept the possibility that somebody other than us can ever truly be right on anything of importance. Consider that some of the most hated people in history are those who have tried too hard to make people think (shatter their veil of ignorance) and make them accept the bad that comes from their actions (think Jesus, think Ghandi, think many different people).

Seriously consider all of those things, and don't half-ass them. It may be painful for your ego, but if humanity is to have any hope at this point, we all may have to sacrifice parts of our ego. After all, our egos are just manifestations of the general human pattern, and when we value our ego over humanity, we are belittling the foundation upon which our being is built. Egos form islands to decay in the ocean, people join into continents that build mountains to reach the heavens. Humanity was never built by the individual, it was built by the humans. At a global scale, we are currently rejecting the humanity of other humans, and not counting them as our equals, be it at a social level, an intellectual level, a spiritual level, or any level. Do we really ever give as much thought to other peoples' views as we do to ourselves? Sadly, I think not (we're all guilty of this).

Now is the time at which you make the choice. We can continue marching humanity backwards from its fortuitous beginnings and back into the abyss. Bear in mind that this backward march will be bloody, with the blood of millions of people shed all for the sake of human stupidity, pride, and ego. This problem embodies the full weight of the chaos theory; a butterfly (human stupidity, pride, and ego) flaps its wings, and somewhere sometime later, a tidal wave crashes upon the shores of humanity, tearing it asunder. We cannot always see the cause of things, but if you look around you, you will see that this is one effect we can see coming. 2+2=4, and human ego + human stupidity = eventual destruction.

It's hard to know how much time we have left, and if serious pain can actually be averted. I know this sounds pessimistic, but it's true, if you really think about it. I can't make this decision, I'm just one human. As humans, we need to make this decision. If you value a future where humans may live in happiness, where we can reach into the universe and pursue our cosmic destiny, then you must act, and you must act now. I'm not telling you to go do social work. In reality, much of that stuff rarely "changes the world." I'm telling you to put your ego in line, admit your failings, expose your failings, and always treat others as if they are equal to you. While this may not seem like much, and may seem too insignificant to make even a dent in the greater problem, remember the little butterfly who, in flapping his/her wings, caused a tidal wave.

No Life, No Death, No Service

Here's a topic most of you probably don't ever think about: do life and death exist? Before you start laughing and writing of the inherent idiocies of such a question, seriously consider it. Is there a necessity to life and death as we know it? Have we become wrapped up in a false dichotomy that we all now take to be automatically correct? Reality is full of false dichotomies, and since we all take life and death for granted, shouldn't we give some thought to this idea?

Consider these premises: 1) there can be no death without life; 2) there can be no life without death; 3) given 1 and 2, if P therefore Q and Q therefore P, then the two premises logically follow to meaningless statements: if life then life and if death then death. Now by themselves, the fact that the two premises can lead to ridiculously useless conclusions (via a logical hypothetical syllogism) does not necesarily make them completely wrong. There are other things to consider though.

It is generally assumed that if something follows from something else, the something else precedes the something in terms of existence. Basically, if the egg came after and from the chicken, then the chicken preceded the egg. In this case, given premises 1 and 2, death cannot exist without life preceding it, and life cannot exist without death preceding it. This logical conundrum can be taken to mean many different things, things which could be talked about at length for quite a long time. Currently, I will only endeavor to cover the most important implications and potential refutations that people would make.

If life and death both must precede each other in order for the to exist, then it would seem like the conceptions concerning life and death are flawed in some way. Because something that precedes another thing necessarily comes before the second thing, it is absolutely and logically impossible (at least in a world of linear logic and thinking) for two things to simultaneously precede each other. The chicken and the egg cannot both come before each other; one of them has to come first. If life and death both precede each other, then there is a serious problem with these age old conceptions.

Probably the first and serious attack that anyone would make on this whole line of thought would be to challenge the correctness of premise 2 (there can be no life without death). The reasons for disavowing this are almost intuitive to human nature. First, it seems to natural to believe that life came before death and that life can exist without death as a necessary condition. It is at least conceivable that life could be created with an intrinsic immortality, and thus death as we conceive of it would never be part of the equation. However, it also seems that in this situation, death is still a possibility, just one that has been averted due to immortality from the get go. It is also not clear how anything would evolve much past the first few cells if the first few cells never died. Basically, this first attack is as potent as it is indefensible. Still, depending on what basic theories and conceptions you have about reality, the argument made by the opponents of my view seem to be more or less intuitively correct. It is hard to stomach the idea that life cannot exist without death (because this seems to be such a negative view, especially given our culture's general fear and disdain of death, coupled with the finality given to death as a state of being).

There is something to be said though for life needing death. Death being a concept, it can have limitless definitions (like many things in our language). Definitions have a tendency to be subjective, and this is no exception. However, let's use a general definition (supplied by dictionary.com). Death is, "The act of dying; termination of life." What is life then? Life in the obvious sense seems to be the quality of not being dead; in a more scientific sense, it is characterized by some assembly of molecule's having a metabolism and other processes that aren't necessarily directly caused by outside causes (a cell's metabolism may be influenced by outside causes, but they don't seem to always directly be caused by outside causes). If life is just not being dead, then that doesn't give much substance to life, especially if death's existence is predicated on the existence of life. Generally speaking, two things cannot create each other; one usually must supersist the other. Though it might be conceivable that two things could simultaneously give rise to the existence of each other, I can think of no feasible example. This is not definitive, but it is a challenge to opponents of this article.

I guess the basic point I'm trying to get across here is that perhaps life and death are not absolute metaphysical entities like we perceive them to be. Life seems to give a special status to one of the defining features of earth, but there seems to be nothing necessarily special about life from a unbiased standpoint (nothing living could take a truly unbiased standpoint about living things). Things seem to be in a constant state of change, and perhaps the distinction of life and death is somewhat archaic. After all, much in reality seems to be cyclical, and pinning down the boundless cosmic processes that are in continual action in reality seems to indicate a jejune and immature thought process. As human beings we are special to earth, but in a big universe, we are not objectively unique.

Just try to think about things and not take everything in reality as intuitive. Life and death could be the truth, but there is not anything necessary about them. They have dominated human perceptions (or at least western perspectives) for centuries, but that does not make them true. Think about things, and you may see life and death can still be true for you, but you might understand why they're not true for others. Try to understand things subjectively instead of objectively, and remember there are an infinite number of sides for every potential view or idea. With all of this said, I conclude this long entry, and bid thee good night (aren't I an ass?).

Imagery, Feedback, and Literary Excess

"A cosmic wind blew at my face, roaring with its unrequited metaphysical fury. For a moment I stood in awe as transcendent storm clouds drifted overhead, dropping raindrops of meaning upon my soul. Then I realized that through my random metaphors, I was being a conspiring non-metaphorical jackass. Weird."

I be a jerk, and a jerk be I (I'm the asshole who wrote that quote and posted it in his profile). When a writer uses extreme and excessive metaphors and imagery for no reason other than that they just feel like using them, it's usually indicative of a crappy piece of literature. Literary devices such as those can enhance a writing, but when used in the excess with no clear objective or purpose, they become a hindrance that can ruin an otherwise perfectly good writing. I mention this because I read a newspaper article in my college's paper last week, and the writer used some metaphor about Alice in Wonderland so much and so poorly that it made her article even crappier than it already was.

I know that I am sometimes guilty of this in my writings. My use of random metaphor and imagery is not lost on me, and though I think I use it fairly, well, there is no real way for me to discern with any accuracy whether it's good or bad (mostly because I never get any feedback). I wish that I knew if I was a good writer, because it is integral to my plans for the future that I have some amount of talent with writing. The brand of teaching and work I will do requires a heavy use of skilled and incisive writings with the specific purpose of targeting certain ideological problems in society and provoking thought about that problem. Writing will be pivotal, and if I'm a terrible writer, then I better start looking for new alternatives.

It's painful sometimes because I get no feedback about anything I write. My Kylis Fers ideas used to get a fair amount of feedback, though that was because when I was in Virginia Beach and Michigan, I had people who were actually interested in what I had to say. Since getting to college, I am unsurprisedly lacking that crucial conversation dynamic with regards to my ideas, so I lack both criticism and feedback. It's hard to be in the dark about one of your most important skills.

I've never had teachers give me real feedback about my writings. Most of my writing teachers were more or less indifferent to me, or never gave real commentary on students' writings in general. At least in high school though I had a constant source of feedback and criticism, though now I'm fumbling around in the dark with regards to where I am with my ideas. I hate it, because I'm in desperate need of sharing my ideas with people, but deep down I know that nobody I know now gives a damn, and I can't really expect them to either.

It's an unfortunate circumstance that I am unable to get any feedback from people, but I guess if I were a talented enough writer, I'd be getting more real feedback. With that logic, it seems like I might have my answer. Some works are so bad that they merit no feedback whatsoever, be it good or bad. Unfortunately, that could be the case for me at this point in time. Then again, maybe I'm just in a temporary darkness, one that could last for a few months or a few more years. Either way, since you're not reading this, it doesn't really matter. I'll write to you all later, and I hope that you all have a great day/night.

Dreaming of Dreams: Romantic Idealism at Its Strongest

"I'd like to hope that one day I'll be able to lay down to sleep and dream an eternal dream where the rigors of life are but a memory past and the joys of life are the rays of sunshine that forever light my way through the quiet, winding road of eternity."

This is another random thing I wrote for an AIM profile of mine. Occasionally, if the mood hits me, I'll write random creative pieces like this for things. I probably wrote this one ages ago (at least 2-3 months), probably during a moment of depression when I recalled the random idea I had over a year ago. The idea blossomed out of one of my multiple story ideas, and it pertained to the metaphysical nature of dreams. Basically, the theory in the story was that dreams, never having a real beginning (because they don't exist) can never have a real end (because they don't exist and thus cannot end). On this premise, dreams are eternal, but since they never truly exist (at least for our reality), their existence and eternality are inconsequential to the metaphysical quality and continuance of our reality. In layman's terms, dreams last forever without posing any threat to the natural order of things.

The implications of this concept (once I ascertained it) were numerous, but amounted to little more than a trivial fancy that danced around in the back of my mind. It was a fun concept that allowed me to further enhance the metaphysical concept of dreams as they appear in my Kylis Fers book series (and potentially other future book series as well). Dreams have always been a source of fascination for me (even though they are technically little more than the mind sorting through itself while a person sleeps), and in literature and stories they can become immense devices through which many different things can be conveyed. Mythology and religion is filled with divine dreams coming to those mortals who need the dream as a catalyst for action towards some greater end. Dreams are the stuff of legend, for both the individual and the more collective consciousness of humanity.

Dreams are so persistently tantalizing for humans because the potential imagination and wonder found in them is boundless (this represents little more than the boundless potential of the human mind, though most people just don't realize it). Moreover, they represent occasions where people can experience some of the greatest joys (and unfortunately, for some dreamers, their greatest fears) their minds can conceive. Theoretically, if one were able to pass from this world (and thus this consciousness) while dreaming a grand dream, they would meet their eternal aspect (meaning the eternal root from which the plant of their humanity grew) in a happy way, thus securing a feeling of happiness for all eternity.

While this represents some kind of dreamy idealism, it's strikes a chord with the imagination and hope within all of us human beings. In a way, dreams are the dreams of human beings (if this statement is paradoxical, it's because typed-text can't convey the necessary intonation on the second dreams, indicating that the second dreams refers more to the conscious aspirations than the unconscious aspiration of the human mind). And since dreams are dreams (no intonation this time, both reference the unconscious sort of dreams), you can dream of dreams with unlimited potential (like the kind I recently described), and thus find a way to be caught up in your own self-created dream heaven. Once again, this is an extremely idealistic perception of dreams (and is not meant to be taken as a serious object of human endeavors), but is meant for an entertainment and spiritual value that would hopefully lift up human spirits when they are down.

Now you are at the root of the purpose behind that quote that I wrote. In moments of misery, we sometimes want nothing more than to be able to drift into a beautiful dream filled with unbridled hope and joy, and seizing the timelessness of a nonexistent entity (dreams have no qualitative existence with regards to our world), fade into eternal peace and obscurity. When life gets you down, pray that you may be able to dream vivid dreams, if only for the brief escape from the challenges of the conscious world.

Let's Be Realistic

Let's be realistic here - these writings that I create are an exercise in extreme futility. I write them for the one man audience of myself, playing out some weird charade in which I act out my absurd thoughts on this type-written stage. A part of me knew this way back when I first started writing on this blog, but some silly part of me carried the blogger's dream of being widely read and highly regarded. Given the rampant success of some bloggers (at least in their ability to garner great attention and even make the news), I guess I probably harbored some strange fantasy of achieving something similar.

The problems with this dream are many. First of all, I am not an interesting or talented writer. I don't need to explain this as all of these ridiculous entries are testament to my lack of prowess as a writer. Second: my blog is not about anything remotely interesting. Most noteworthy blogs are either funny or address some current issue in the world. Obviously my blog is not funny (which is good, because it almost never aspires to be, so that's one thing I've done right...I think...), and it clearly does not address issues of real importance. Though earlier entries used to concern themselves with actual ideas about life, death, and other such random topics about the nature of things in reality, recent articles have been extremely egocentric, generally involving me whining about whatever crap happens to plague the emotionally immature part of my mind. Looking at all of this, it is not quite clear why the logical side of me would ever allow me to harbor such a remote and absurd fantasy.

I do apologize to the hapless reader who might ever stumble upon this blog. I'm a tempermental 19 year-old white college male who has never been without in life. My family is not rich, but I've definitely been spoiled in life, and probably my greatest problems in life are all self-created. I maintain excellent pretenses sometimes that would convey the image that I'm a good human being who's genuinely interested in the welfare of others, but more and more I'm beginning to think that I'm an egoistical ass who satiates his conscience by subconsciously conspiring to consciously do good things for others. Sound convoluted? I'm sure it does, but many things in life are. I would not be the first case of someone pretending to be good when really being an atrocity.

The character flaw I possess that merits me some sort of designation as a horrible person is my extremely sanctimonious nature. You might have heard me mention it in the past, but this recurring flaw screams its presence too much for me to appease it with a solitary mention. People often feel like they're being judged by me and in all likelihood, at some level, they are. I don't know how I ever ended up being judgmental, because with an abysmal self-esteem like mine, it's hard for me to understand how I would ever, at any level, delude myself into believing I'm better than anybody. Usually I tear apart any small portions of self-esteem with the vicious claws of self-doubt, leaving little more than the crappy refuse of my worthless psyche. Despite my efforts to crush my ego, they have proved little more than appeasements for the internal Hitler of my mind, waiting for the Poland of my consciousness to be seized so that the rest of my mind can truly declare war on and destroy every fabric of my ego.

I honestly don't know why I am this way. My mother, grandmother, and eventually my father (initially my stepfather, but by age 12 he was officially my father) all raised me extremely well, doing as good a job as parents can do. I've never been remiss of love and care in my family, and I was the center of attention until I was 9. My transition from center of attention to being a big brother was an easy one, and there were few complications in the the change of attention from me to another (especially when I had 3 siblings born in a 4 year period). Basically, there is nothing in my childhood that can be cleary identified as a reason for me being so damn horrible. Logically, there does not seem to be any discernable plausibility in the causes and the current effect. Why am I do screwed up?

Either way, such a topic could easily take volumes of pages to fully explore, and as such I will not hazard to do so here (even though I've been doing so for the past few entries...). I am what I am, and I am an anomalous person whose existence cannot be justified. I wonder sometimes why I'm given anything in life, when ultimately I don't really deserve any of it. My role and function in this world has never been pivotal, and therefore it is easily conceivable that my existence is unnecessary. Do not misconstrue my words though. Just because I view my existence as unnecessary (and therefore not significantly and irreplaceably important) does not mean I ever consider suicide. Understand that with stunning and earth-shattering clarity right now. I believe that with effort, I may one day be able to be useful, and therefore suicide is never at the front of my mind. I also tend to hold some existentialist's comment in the back of my mind that, "suicide is the choice to have no meaning in life."

Don't lie to yourself. Or at least, people like me should never lie to themselves. When you're an overly idealistic and absurdly sanctimonious dipshit like myself, you never have the right to hide from reality behind a veil of ignorance. Those who do good in life and are not a plague on other people deserve a brief respite from reality, even if it is obtained through hiding from reality for a time. There will be no rest for me, if I succeed at the task I must do. No longer can I delude myself, because every time I possess the fantasy that I have value or have even a modicum of true intelligence, I am fabricating a falsity of epic proportions. My task is clear, my mission certain, all I have to do now is fight like hell to crush my ego and allow others some peace of mind.

Requiem for a Dream

Despite the fact that a movie with this title precedes this article, the fact remains that this title felt most appropriate for what I wanted to write. That aside...

"Silent rays of light burst forth over the horizon, illuminating the path before me. During the night I had dreamed of what lay in the darkness, fantasizing about kingdoms and magic. I stand disenchanted, the dim reality of it all mocking my innocent dreams. My life is more clear; the dreams of my callow youth fade as the darkness does to light. Though I feel a pain at this destruction, I see reality, no less beautiful by my worthless and stupid dreams."

I've taken lately to trying to create random short creative pieces for my AIM profile. Though I know no one reads them, I figure that it's a good exercise in honing my writing skills, even if they may never be good enough for that which I want to do. The reason I threw this in here is because this piece I wrote earlier tonight for my profile shows a theme that's been recurring in my mind for the last few days. Lately I've been looking at the future a lot, trying to penetrate the cloud of obscurity that obstructs our view to the uncertain future. Though there's always a great element of futility in attempting to ascertain events that have not yet happened, there's a sort of unavoidable attraction towards catching glimpses of our futures.

The more I look forward however, the more miserable I feel. Each day I feel a growing disdain for the path I've chosen, but I know that nothing else will make me any happier. I've always had dreams of just writing stories all my life, be it for movies, t.v. shows, comics, books, whatever. But these dreams were a child's silly daydreams, and I've hung on to them for too long. I can't expect real success as a writer. Considering that some of these entries represent my writings at their best, it's easy to understand why my success as a writer is something of a pipedream that can only be had within a dream. That is how far removed from reality my dreams are. The bittersweet pangs of sadness tear at me from the inside when I think this, because it has been my greatest ambition for years now to be a writer. Looking around at reality though, I know that I will never be a writer. Though I will try when time and life permits, I know that it is a wasted enterprise.

I have never been exceptional at writing and I have no reason to believe that I ever will be. Not many writers without talent make it as writers. If I had any kind of inherent exceptional writing prowess, I should have been recognized by now. As it stands, most of my works are usually so boring that it's amazing if someone can even stomach a short paragraph of mine. Mind you, I'm not insinuating that other people are at fault; I'm just stating that what I write is usually so boring that it causes people grief to read too much more. This is a reality I'm coming to accept, bursting the pipedream and aspirations to literary greatness that I might have once harbored. Though I feel like there is an inherent brilliance to my ideas and stories, they are my children, and so of course I am proud of them. They retain no value beyond that though, and stand as mere conceptual shells, hollow from the lack of soul and depth of their creator.

My dreams must fade from my vision of reality. There is no room in life for a man blinded by silly fantasies. I will likely not enjoy overly much the jobs I will do in the coming future, but many people do not like their jobs. At least they choose useful positions and are of utility to society. I'm a philosophy major. Basically, I'm majoring in uselessness and futility, bordering insanity with my stupid choices. I should have chosen something more useful, even if I wouldn't have liked the classes. To be honest, right now, I don't really like the classes either. At least if I were studying something like science I'd at least be doing something good for society.

I have to find my shallow and meaningless niche in society soon. Once that niche is found, I need to stop meddling in other peoples' lives and fulfill the purpose for which evolution created me: to serve others and be a worthless cog in a wonderful machine. I'm extent, unnecessary crap cluttering up the grand design; failing to know my place I attempt to forge a new one, risking the whole damn enterprise all together. Why I am so greedy and so focused on my own needs is beyond me, but it needs to stop. The day when my dreams mattered or were allowed to exist has past. The days has come for me to grow up, and abolish all my silly fantasies about achieving greatness as a writer, about being some weird and amazing teacher who teaches his students about life, about being a great parent. Given my current state and lack of an interesting personality, I find it hard to believe that I'll ever be tolerable or likeable enough for anyone to become romantically interested in me. Though I say I'd adopt if I'm not married by age 30, I'd hate to raise a child alone because then it would have all of my flaws because there'd be no mother to hinder the transfer of stupidity from parent to child.

The only place left for my dreams is the remote part of my heart from which they came. My esoteric soul is a thing of songs, of poems, and religion, but deep within its imaginary walls lies a small spot. In that spot is housed all the innocent and reckless ambition of the human imagination, finding refuse in a remote spot of the total sum of our being. In this way our daydreams carry from generation to generation, always managing to avoid being weeded out. The corner of my imaginary heart, my fabricated soul has been and will always, a requiem for my dreams, dumb as they may be.

Looking Toward the New Horizon

I spend a lot of time these days looking forward, trying to catch some glimmer of the future, hoping to ascertain the forthcoming events in my life. I don't really know why I endeavor to do this, because my viewings of my future usually put me on a path towards misery and discontent. I'm not quite sure why this is the case, but more and more I begin to feel the reasons accumulate in the back of my mind, assembling into this great picture of my own unhappiness and discontent.

There is some kind of saying to the effect that if you expect the worst you will make the worst happen. Though it is definitely possible that moving through life with a negative mindset can increase the odds of unfortunate events, it is not always the case that a negative mindset leads to misfortune. The opposite of this is true too; having a positive outlook does not necessitate good fortune, because optimism can occasionally be met with misery. That said, though a realistic look at the events that may come in my future may put me at risk of increasing the odds of their being realized, however, they do not necessarily do so. Having a positive outlook now will probably not give me happiness in the face of sadness; recent events in my life have easily shown this to be the case.

I am more alone now than I ever have been before, and with each passing day, my isolation will only grow in its potency and presence. By the very nature of my personality I alienate myself from other people, discomforting them to the point where my presence is either unrealized, ignored, or worse, dreaded. Despite my acknowledgment of this trait, I cannot necessarily change my personality. Part of me feels isolated because of my thought process, and I'm not willing to give up my thought process. At the risk of being an arrogant and pretentious ass (those who know me well know that I'm probably an arrogant and pretentious ass no matter what), I will say with unusual confidence that I am very bright.

Some days I also feel too mature, and I have no idea why. I'm not one of those people who had any reason to mature early, as there was no great tragedy in my life. I grew up without a father until I was 8, but that wouldn't make me mature early. Besides, I had enough family attention prior to that point that there is no real issue there. Nothing else even seems to be a possible cause. I'm naturally able to look at things from other peoples' point of views (well, sometimes at least), and thus take positions on things that are not going to be agreed on by certain people. I know these are all arrogant assumptions, but they were what I intuitively feel, and if my intuition can't be trusted, then I don't really know what to trust anymore.

Either way, the path that I'm choosing for myself leads to one increasingly walked alone. My isolation has already begun mentally, and next year it will begin physically. Though I will live close to my friends who are living a short ways off-campus, with the shell I already live in my time spent with them is going to drop radically. While I currently eat virtually all of my meals with friends, this will rarely be the case next year. For a variety of dynamic reasons, next year will be a challenge for me. My risk of depression will be greater than ever, and with the looming possibility of one of my best of friends never really wanting to be true friends again, I have no reason to believe there will be a respite from this mess. Looking further into the future, if I do my job and achieve even a small number of my goals, I'm going to piss a lot of people off. It's quite possible and very probable that this trend of isolation will continue indefinitely, fueled by own personality and my own goals. If I make people think, they will hate me.

My forecast is not completely bleak. The one thing I have to look forward to next year is being an RA in Converse and living only a 6 minute walk from my friends. While this prospect alone brings some modicum of joy to my mind, it can only alleviate my misery, rather than fix it. My sadness can not really be pitied though, because I've made my choices and come to an understanding of who I am. I'm not willing to change fundamental parts of myself just to appeal to other people. I'm usually willing to fix potential flaws, but the flaws that I have are not flaws with coping with life, they're flaws with being liked by people my age. I will not abandon my thought process or my logic and empathy just to be more appealing. Though I'm definitely a sanctimonious ass, I do not believe that I am entirely wrong on everything that I ever think. Surely I've had my own share of revelations and insights, and am entitled to thinking that I'm at least right on some things. Either way, the end result is the same: in the next few months, I will begin my lonely walk on the path of life.

I realize that for the most part, I only thought I had companions. I have friends, good friends too, but I won't pull them on to my path. They will follow their own, and for the most part, the ones they follow will probably be much more lucrative. And though I thought that my greatest friend might be more than a friend, the she might be able to accompany me, even if only for a short time. This was little more than an illusion; I'm not sure what really took place anymore, but she was never going to be huge part of my life. She didn't want to, and I can't really blame her. I'm not angry. We all make choices in our lives that seem most conducive to us achieving our desired end, and just because nobody's best choice will do anything more than intersect mine (as opposed to running along the same path or going parallel to it for a time) does not mean they're cruel or unfair.

My path will increasingly wonder through some forest; surrounded by life but still so far removed from any kind of communicable life. Though the world around me will be explosive with life constantly growing and being reborn, I will walk amid it all, ostracized because of my own weird flaws or traits. Ultimately, I cannot blame the forest just because I'm not a tree. If not being a part of that wonderful ecosystem means being isolated from the particular cycle of life, then so be it. I will have to accept this unfortunate possibility, and attempt to endure the depressed state of mind that will grow increasingly painful in the next few months.

With that, I say good night.